App Stores, App Stores, App Stores… What if instead of selling to consumers I want to sell to Dev’s!? Wouldn’t it be interesting if there where a store for Dev’s in Visual Studio? A DevStore? There IS! (Or will be soon…)

World of VS - Announcing the DevStore!

“We have been working hard during this year on extending Visual Studio 2010 to support the in-product selling and buying of extensions in a very easy and smooth way and we are proud to announce today the upcoming availability of the DevStore!

Yes, it actually works as good as it looks

You can purchase paid extensions with a single click (paid via PayPal first, Amazon Payments, Google Checkout and credit cards later based on user feedback). You can read and write reviews right there in the Extension Manager too. And of course, there will be still a dedicated DevStore web site where you can browse for all available extensions.

With the same ease you can also publish your VS extension to the DevStore for others to purchase. All you need to do is add a couple additional entries into the manifest file for your extension (i.e. purchase price and, optionally, upgrade price) and then right click on the extension project and select “Publish to DevStore”:

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That’s interesting… I wonder if it will work, I wonder if our dev community will embrace this? I can’t see big/major purchasing happening here. Too much of that goes through corp/company procurement processes. So for smaller items? As a dev I know, when it comes to my pocket, I’m a cheap bastard. I’ll hunt, and hunt and hunt for free alternatives before I crack open my wallet (and have to explain the purchase to my DFO, my Domestic Financial Officer… i.e. my wife… ;)

I guess it all depends on the content and the price points. $0.99 to $9.99, pretty easy. Over $50? Doubt it. Will I submit my work to the store? Kind of doubt it. Given how much I rely on the free work of others, I like to pay it forward and give  my stuff away too…

With all that said, I still really think this is pretty cool. I really dig the thought behind this…